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I'm a developer but I've been assigned to a new project were it seems I'll have to wear the IT hat too.

Company bought a new server were we'll be running an application which basically "translates" binary data into a human readable file. All of this is stored in a MySQL database.

The new server specs are as follows:

Model: HP DL380p Gen8

Processor: Intel® Xeon® E5-2609 (2.40GHz/4-core/10MB/80W) FIO Processor Kit

Ram: (4)HP 2GB (1x2GB) Single Rank x8 PC3L-10600E (DDR3-1333) Unbuffered CAS-9 Low Voltage Memory Kit

Storage: (2) HP 600GB 6G SAS 10K rpm SFF (2.5-inch) SC Enterprise

My question is: Whats the most effective way to partition this new server? Recommended sizes ect...

I've read that there should be separate partitions for root,usr,swap and data. But they are usually examples for small disks.

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Rhyuk
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    `But they are usually examples for small disks, not 1.2TB! ` - Certainly you don't plan on striping those two disks to get the full 1.2TB? I think you should consider mirroring the two disks for a total usable space of 600GB – MDMarra Jun 25 '12 at 15:26
  • Well... that's whats the "higher ups" has been saying. The project details are still blurry. But your suggestion makes total sense to me. – Rhyuk Jun 25 '12 at 15:36

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It'd difficult to give an exact answer because you yourself don't appear to know everything that's needed but I have to make one thing absolutely clear - you do not have 1.2TB to play with.

The reason is that under no circumstances at all would you do anything other than mirror/RAID1 those two boot disks. This will enable you to survive when (not if) one of those disks dies.

Now onto the actual recommendation - buy at least two more disks. Seriously.

The reason is that you should put your OS onto those two boot disks (in a R1 pair) and store your data on another pair (or more) of disks in either a R6 or R10 array. This is what professionals do, it's boring why but it's all about keeping your OS workload off your 'regular' working disks and vice-versa, it keeps thinks nice and neat too for when things need to expand/change/move etc.

So you put your root, var etc. OS filesystems on the first R1 pair and the create a /mnt/data or whatever filesystem on the second array for your actual data.

If you're new to running Linux I'd advise you to take the OS's installation default for the sizes of the various filesystems (maybe extend /var, the defaults are often too low) but user LVM and leave a good chunk (several tens of GB) of free space so that as you come to know how your OS behaves you can shrink and grow the individual filesystems accordingly - if you leave this space unused it makes life that much easier. Whether you use LVM or not on your second array is down to you, it really depends if you can afford the few percent performance hit its flexibility gives you. Oh and don't be afraid of the ext4 filesystem if you're using a modern Linux, it's very stable.

Chopper3
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  • I don't think I'll be able to get the other 2 disks. From what they've said "we were lucky" to get what we got. So basically Ill have to mirror/Raid1 them. And I apologize for now knowing a lot about this. I'm not usually assigned to these kind of projects. – Rhyuk Jun 25 '12 at 15:42
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    Why buy a DL380p Gen8 (not the cheapest server) and then hamper it with just two disks? This would be like buying a porsche but keeping it in first gear. You could have bought a DL1xx or 360 spent the difference on decent disks instead. – Chopper3 Jun 25 '12 at 15:45
  • I didnt bought it nor had nothing to do with the selection process...they came down to me to "we bought this, you are going to migrate this application to this new server". – Rhyuk Jun 25 '12 at 15:48
  • How much actual data have you got to put on it? – Chopper3 Jun 25 '12 at 15:48
  • Still unknown to me. But a single file that the application processes is in the GBs. The current server has way less storage space than the new one though. – Rhyuk Jun 25 '12 at 15:57
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    Ok, well in that case carve your disk up so your OS has about 50-100GB and give the rest to your data but make sure it's under a new filesystem ok. At least that way it's easier to move WHEN you have to add new disks. – Chopper3 Jun 25 '12 at 16:05
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    I use 64gb for the OS partition for years now (or 64gb discs in a VM) and would take it from there. That is a seriously abused server. Too few discs, and less memory than a developer workstation. Ouch. – TomTom Jun 25 '12 at 16:08
  • Damn, hadn't even seen the memory - at least he won't need a big /swap :) - awww and no HT either, talk about a bad buy – Chopper3 Jun 25 '12 at 16:12
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    Yes. Funny what crap people do buy. Seriuously. Not blaming the poster here... - he made it clear he was handed the server. – TomTom Jun 25 '12 at 17:19
  • Yeah, totally, poster's just doing his job, no issue with that, just wondering what sort of spec DL120 G7/160 Gen8 you could get for the same money - ah well, money's spent now – Chopper3 Jun 25 '12 at 17:33
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    Alright, I was able to scavenge 2 more disks of 145GB each. So taking your suggestion in consideration I should install the OS (which it seems will be RHEL5) in the 145GB disks (RAID1) and place the data in the other array of the 600GB disks right?. I might be a total noob in the IT scene but I def like to do things right. – Rhyuk Jun 28 '12 at 13:05
  • Yay! and yep you got it - 100% right ;) – Chopper3 Jun 28 '12 at 18:59
  • 2 more things, I read that for RAID6 I need to have at least 3 disks (which i wont have) shall I put them on RAID1 aswell? Also, Am I better off with SW Raid or HW Raid? – Rhyuk Jun 28 '12 at 20:16
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    Your server has just about the best hardware RAID there is so use that, software RAID gives you flexibility but it also means every single write has to go over your bus and down to the controller/disks twice. Don't use R6 for this scenario - really, really don't - it has its uses, i.e. on larger (>12 disk) arrays where space is important, and is oceans better than R5 but you don't need that for this, just do it as we've discussed. – Chopper3 Jun 28 '12 at 21:04
  • Performance wise, where should I install my application/MySQL? – Rhyuk Jun 30 '12 at 15:00
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    It doesn't really matter but I'd probably put the executables on the boot disks. – Chopper3 Jun 30 '12 at 16:00